Vacant Properties in Ireland

Timing belt

Just extracted the data from the CSO statbank and got the following for the 2016

Dublin Total
Total housing stock ( A+B+C+D+E) (Number) 530,753
A Occupied by usual resident(s) of the household (Number) 479,159
B Occupied by visitors only (Number) 2,609
C Unoccupied - residents temporarily absent (Number) 15,988
D Unoccupied - vacant house/apartment (Number) 31,459
E Unoccupied - vacant holiday home (Number) 1,538
Vacancy rate { D+E / Total housing stock } (%) 6.2%


Dublin City 8.1%
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown 5.5%
Fingal 5%
South Dublin 3.6%

Reason for vacancy:
Total Dublin city & suburbs
For Sale 2,682
Deceased 1,355
Vacant Long Term 1,265
Rental Property 3,757
Nursing Home 865
Renovation 965
New Build 257
Emigrated 172
Boarded up - habitable 284
Hospital 454
With Relatives 103
Other personal use 85
Abandoned farm house 4
Other 15,940
Total 28,188

Difference to Total Dublin figure 4,809

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

Just extracted the data from the CSO statbank and got the following for the 2016

Dublin Total
Total housing stock ( A+B+C+D+E) (Number) 530,753
A Occupied by usual resident(s) of the household (Number) 479,159
B Occupied by visitors only (Number) 2,609
C Unoccupied - residents temporarily absent (Number) 15,988
D Unoccupied - vacant house/apartment (Number) 31,459
E Unoccupied - vacant holiday home (Number) 1,538
Vacancy rate { D+E / Total housing stock } (%) 6.2%


Dublin City 8.1%
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown 5.5%
Fingal 5%
South Dublin 3.6%

Reason for vacancy:
Total Dublin city & suburbs
For Sale 2,682
Deceased 1,355
Vacant Long Term 1,265
Rental Property 3,757
Nursing Home 865
Renovation 965
New Build 257
Emigrated 172
Boarded up - habitable 284
Hospital 454
With Relatives 103
Other personal use 85
Abandoned farm house 4
Other 15,940
Total 28,188

Difference to Total Dublin figure 4,809

There you go, there’s your ballpark 6% for 2016, according to CSO - remove holiday homes and it is a little lower.

According to Geo those numbers likely to have increased since then

Timing belt

schmittel wrote: »

There you go, there’s your ballpark 6% for 2016, according to CSO.

According to Geo those numbers likely to have increased since then

yes but a lot of what is being counted as vacant I would not count as available housing stock.

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

yes but a lot of what is being counted as vacant I would not count as available housing stock.

I agree not available any time soon, but part of the total housing stock nonetheless.

Ballpark what sort of % of properties that are for sale would you estimate are vacant? Obviously all new builds are, most executor sales are, most rentals being sold I guess would be, most family homes I guess would not be.

but overall what % would you guess?

Timing belt

schmittel wrote: »

I agree not available any time soon, but part of the total housing stock nonetheless.

Ballpark what sort of % of properties that are for sale would you estimate are vacant? Obviously all new builds are, most executor sales are, most rentals being sold I guess would be, most family homes I guess would not be.

but overall what % would you guess?

It will depend a lot on location but if you use the CSO Vacancy data and the category of "For Sale" for Dublin you had 2682 in 2016 this equates to 0.5% of housing stock at the time in Dublin.

If the percentage of properties for sale is similar to the market at the moment then you have 1% for sale so I would estimate that 50% of properties are vacant when they are up for sale. Howver this figure would appear to be high as people are normally in a property chain but if the no of houses for sale in Dublin is down due to to covid and you would normally have 2% of stock available for sale then this would give 25% of properties for sale being vacant which I think would be closer to what I would expect.

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Simple question:

Simple answer

Not an answer in any way.
Some maths reinvention by you only.

GeoDirectory clearly states a Fact:
"The average vacancy rate across the State was 4.5%"
"Dublin had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.3%"

Latest report:
https://www.geodirectory.ie/getattachment/Knowledge-Centre/Reports-Blogs/GeoView-Residential-Buildings-Report-Q2-2020/GeoDirectory-GeoView-Residential-Issue-13-2.pdf?lang=en-IE

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

Not an answer in any way.
Some maths reinvention by you only.

GeoDirectory clearly states a Fact:
"The average vacancy rate across the State was 4.5%"
"Dublin had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.3%"

Latest report:
https://www.geodirectory.ie/getattachment/Knowledge-Centre/Reports-Blogs/GeoView-Residential-Buildings-Report-Q2-2020/GeoDirectory-GeoView-Residential-Issue-13-2.pdf?lang=en-IE

You asked me explain how I got to the conclusion, I tried to, you rubbished that attempt.

You asked me to be simple, I gave you the info that led me to the conclusion, you rubbished that too.

You interpret these figures differently, I get it.

Can we just agree to disagree?

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

You asked me explain how I got to the conclusion, I tried to, you rubbished that attempt.

You asked me to be simple, I gave you the info that led me to the conclusion, you rubbished that too.

You interpret these figures differently, I get it.

Can we just agree to disagree?

"Dublin had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.3%" - it's not my interpretation, it's GeoDirectory facts.

You dismissing facts, of the source we discussing, not interpretation.

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

"Dublin had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.3%" - it's not my interpretation, it's GeoDirectory facts.

You dismissing facts, of the source we discussing, not interpretation.

Dublin has considerably more than 1.3% vacant properties for a range of reasons.

That is a fact.

GeoDirectory is making a judgement on what they consider to be the "true vacant total."

That is a fact.

GeoDirectory are interpreting the total vacancy data.

That is a fact.

You are unable to understand this.

That is a fact.

Marius34

No need to confuse written Facts, with our opinions.

schmittel wrote: »

Yes, I've heard you on the Census. And ignoring the census, GeoDirectory points to exactly the same conclusion.

schmittel wrote: »

Dublin has considerably more than 1.3% vacant properties for a range of reasons.
That is a fact.

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

No need to confuse Facts, with our opinions.

Surely even you are not claiming that you think 98.7% properties are actually physically occupied in Dublin?

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Surely even you are not claiming that you think 98.7% properties are actually physically occupied in Dublin?

Obviously not all occupied on daily basis, those things doesn't happen in real world, but nor are they sitting empty for longer term.
Don't want to speculate such things, as we would go far from actual reports...

hometruths

Timing belt wrote: »

It will depend a lot on location but if you use the CSO Vacancy data and the category of "For Sale" for Dublin you had 2682 in 2016 this equates to 0.5% of housing stock at the time in Dublin.

If the percentage of properties for sale is similar to the market at the moment then you have 1% for sale so I would estimate that 50% of properties are vacant when they are up for sale. Howver this figure would appear to be high as people are normally in a property chain but if the no of houses for sale in Dublin is down due to to covid and you would normally have 2% of stock available for sale then this would give 25% of properties for sale being vacant which I think would be closer to what I would expect.

Yes, 25% seems to be a reasonable estimate to me.

Where are you getting normally 2% of stock available for sale? I don't think we have had anywhere near 2% for sale for a long time. Myhome reports suggest stock levels are currently down approx 20% from same time last year.

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

Obviously not all occupied on daily basis, those things doesn't happen in real world, but nor are they sitting empty for longer term.
Don't want to speculate such things, as we would go far from actual reports...

Ok, so to put in another way - for a range of reasons there are more than 1.3% of properties vacant in Dublin.

That's a fact.

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Ok, so to put in another way - for a range of reasons there are more than 1.3% of properties vacant in Dublin.

That's a fact.

Home temporally absent, yes.
Not for longer term, this is what GeoDirectory data about. And we discuss exactly GeoDirectory, and not temporal absence.

PropQueries

Back in January 2019, the current housing minister was still referring to the 2016 Census vacancy figures but from another angle i.e. probate sales:

"Delays in validating wills is contributing to the chronic shortage of housing.

New figures show that it can take up to 20 weeks before families receive probate after a loved one has died. This is causing financial stress for families and reducing the number of homes on the market, according to Fianna Fáil housing spokesman Darragh O'Brien.

Information supplied to the TD shows that some 30,000 people pass away in Ireland each year, with up to 87pc of them owning a home.

This means around 26,000 homes could be potentially affected by delays in probate, which is only initiated once a person's will has been obtained and validated.

The Department of Justice has also confirmed that a group tasked with reviewing probate in Ireland, which was announced in June 2016, has still not been established. These factors are likely to be contributing to the relatively high 9.2pc vacancy rate of 183,000 homes nationwide, Mr O'Brien said."

I suppose the question is how many of these should actually be re-entering the market each year as it's a considerable amount of additional potential supply. I think many people mistakenly equate housing supply with new builds when there are actually multiple sources of supply entering and re-entering the market each year from many different sources.

Link to Irish Independent article here: https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/probate-delays-add-to-housing-shortage-37679697.html

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

Home temporally absent, yes.
Not for longer term, this is what GeoDirectory data about. And we discuss exactly GeoDirectory, and not temporal absence.

Great, agreed, thank you.

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Great, agreed, thank you.

So you agree with GeoDirectory report of Dublin long term vacancy of 1.3%?

hometruths

Marius34 wrote: »

So you agree with GeoDirectory report of Dublin long term vacancy of 1.3%?

Yes I do - I agree that the 1.3% figure is likely to be an accurate vacancy rate of what GeoDirectory measures as long term vacancy.

Are you happy now, can we drop it?

Marius34

schmittel wrote: »

Yes I do - I agree that the 1.3% figure is likely to be an accurate vacancy rate of what GeoDirectory measures as long term vacancy.

Are you happy now, can we drop it?

Sure, we finally can see that there are no high vacancy at all for long term.

hometruths

Dr Lorcan Sirr is a senior lecturer in housing at the Technological University Dublin and author of Housing in Ireland: the A-Z guide - so he sounds like an expert to me.

He has this to say on the vacancy rate:

The overall vacancy rate in Census 2016, including holiday homes, was 12.3 per cent. If holiday homes are excluded from the housing stock the vacancy rate drops to 9.4 per cent. A vacancy rate of between 2.5 per cent and 6 percent is considered normal in a properly functioning housing market.

PropQueries

schmittel wrote: »

Dr Lorcan Sirr is a senior lecturer in housing at the Technological University Dublin and author of Housing in Ireland: the A-Z guide - so he sounds like an expert to me.

He has this to say on the vacancy rate:

There are a few papers published that break down and analyse why the units were vacant in 2016. Of the c. 180,000, both papers could only find reasons for c. 57,000 of them being vacant at that time. It's the reasons why the other c. 123,000 were vacant that would interest me, as it appears the enumerators did go out of their way to find out. Which brings me back to my current opinion (open to change) that they're primarily owned by the investment funds but by what percentage is the question.

I think it's an important question as it's their decisions on what they intend to do with the number of properties they control that I believe will decide the future direction of the housing market. Outside the REITS, I believe they would have little long-term interest in the Irish housing market. And, even then, Irish Reit stated last month that they were selling c. 150 of the units they currently own.

Link to analysis of the 2016 vacancy figures by Maynooth University in 2017: http://airo.maynoothuniversity.ie/news/breakdown-housing-vacancy-figures-ireland

Link to analysis of the 2016 vacancy figures by the Government in 2018: https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/national_vacant_housing_reuse_strategy_0.pdf

hometruths

PropQueries wrote: »

There are a few papers published that break down and analyse why the units were vacant in 2016. Of the c. 180,000, both papers could only find reasons for c. 57,000 of them being vacant at that time. It's the reasons why the other c. 123,000 were vacant that would interest me, as it appears the enumerators did go out of their way to find out. Which brings me back to my current opinion (open to change) that they're primarily owned by the investment funds but by what percentage is the question.

I think it's an important question as it's their decisions on what they intend to do with the number of properties they control that I believe will decide the future direction of the housing market. Outside the REITS, I believe they would have little long-term interest in the Irish housing market.

Link to analysis of the 2016 vacancy figures by Maynooth University in 2017: http://airo.maynoothuniversity.ie/news/breakdown-housing-vacancy-figures-ireland

Link to analysis of the 2016 vacancy figures by the Government in 2018: https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/national_vacant_housing_reuse_strategy_0.pdf

I'm not so sure about the investment funds theory but I completely agree that there needs to be proper analysis about the why they are vacant. Once that is understood, who actually owns them is less relevant.

GeoDirectory analysed the figures and state that the reasons behind the balance of 123,000 are likely broadly similiar in proportion to the 57,000. i.e if 1.8% of the 57,000 were classified as vacant because they were available for rent, then it is reasonable to assume that approximately 1.8% of the 123,000 were also available for rent.

PropQueries

A poster in the other property market 2020 forum board posted the link the latest quarterly bulletin from the Central Bank and the following statement from the report was pointed out:

"House completions are expected to decline to approximately 17,500
units in 2020, down from 21,000 units in 2019. More recent data indicate
that housing commencements and registrations have held up better than
expected during Q2 2020, with over 3,000 new housing units commenced,
although considerable uncertainty around demand, prices and financing
remains. Current expectations are for approximately 22,000 and 27,400
units in 2021 and 2022, respectively."

It looks like the various state bodies may be beginning to reassess their net inward migration projections of c. 30,000 per annum and their impact on housing demand going forward.

Link to Central Bank quarterly bulletin here: https://www.centralbank.ie/docs/default-source/publications/quarterly-bulletins/qb-archive/2020/quarterly-bulletin---q4-2020.pdf

PropQueries

schmittel wrote: »

I'm not so sure about the investment funds theory but I completely agree that there needs to be proper analysis about the why they are vacant. Once that is understood, who actually owns them is less relevant.

GeoDirectory analysed the figures and state that the reasons behind the balance of 123,000 are likely broadly similiar in proportion to the 57,000. i.e if 1.8% of the 57,000 were classified as vacant because they were available for rent, then it is reasonable to assume that approximately 1.8% of the 123,000 were also available for rent.

That's some assumption by GeoDirectory though. The census enumerators would have asked neighbours etc. (that's part of the counting procedure) and they still couldn't put down a definite answer. But for now...

hometruths

PropQueries wrote: »

That's some assumption by GeoDirectory though. The census enumerators would have asked neighbours etc. (that's part of the counting procedure) and they still couldn't put down a definite answer. But for now...

Yes, that is why I think further in depth analysis is required. But in the absence of any such analysis it seems a fairly reasonable approach.

In fairness, if you consider the categories they are including, it's does pretty much cover most eventualities:

For Sale
Deceased
Vacant Long Term
Rental Property
Nursing Home
Renovation
New Build
Emigrated
Boarded up - habitable
Hospital
With Relatives
Other personal use
Abandoned farm house

PropQueries

schmittel wrote: »

Yes, that is why I think further in depth analysis is required. But in the absence of any such analysis it seems a fairly reasonable approach.

In fairness, if you consider the categories they are including, it's does pretty much cover most eventualities:

For Sale
Deceased
Vacant Long Term
Rental Property
Nursing Home
Renovation
New Build
Emigrated
Boarded up - habitable
Hospital
With Relatives
Other personal use
Abandoned farm house

That's what I mean and still they could only put a reason down for c.57,000 of them. The other c. 123,000 is the question. If nothing else, Irish people like to talk. If nobody locally knows, there's a better than even chance it's owned by an investment fund. IMO

They did buy €200 billion in property and business loans between 2012 and 2016.

hometruths

PropQueries wrote: »

That's what I mean and still they could only put a reason down for c.57,000 of them. The other c. 123,000 is the question. If nothing else, Irish people like to talk. If nobody locally knows, there's a better than even chance it's owned by an investment fund. IMO

They did buy €200 billion in property and business loans between 2012 and 2016.

Apologies, what I meant it is pretty reasonable to assume that the other 123,000 come under one of those categories as well. They are quite broad.

PropQueries

schmittel wrote: »

Apologies, what I meant it is pretty reasonable to assume that the other 123,000 come under one of those categories as well. They are quite broad.

The option "Boarded up - habitable" is interesting as it does show that the properties they counted were habitable and not derelict at the time. Otherwise, there would have been a 'derelict' option. So most of the other 123,000 were most likely habitable in some form or other or would most likely require little investment to bring them back into the market.

hometruths

PropQueries wrote: »

They did buy €200 billion in property and business loans between 2012 and 2016.

My doubt re the investment fund theory ownership is that they are professional landlords - they don't have the same tax disincentives, are not frightened of the hassle of admin and maintenance, unlikely to be as concerned about problem tenants, unlikely to see STLs as a handy alternative etc etc

I just don't see as many understandable reasons for a REIT to keep their properties vacant in 2016 - 2020.

I'll agree for sure that I suspect there are vast swathes of empty REIT properties right now because of covid related upheaval in the rental market.